Archive for October 19th, 2008
Appendix of the fiction story “Rainbow over the Levant (Near East)
Historical background
A short summary of the history of this region, starting two centuries preceding the events of this novel, can shed a satisfactory understanding for the setting of this historical fiction around the last quarter of the 14th century AD.
The Mameluke Sultan Baybars of Egypt had dislodged the Christian Crusaders from the last remaining city in the Near East in 1291. The chased out Crusaders forces were just holding on to the island of Cyprus.
The Caliphates of the Islamic empire, who were virtual rulers in Baghdad since the 10th century, were restored to their virtual religious polarization in Cairo under the Mameluke hegemony.
The Crusaders from Christian Europe had been defeated previously in 1187 in a critical battle at Hittine in Palestine by Saladin who managed that feat after reigning as Sultan in both capitals of Cairo and Damascus.
To better comprehend the Levant history we need to stress on the facts that the whole region that composes the present States of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan and even Iraq (from the 12th century onward) has been throughout its long history under the direct or indirect domination of empires in Iran, Turkey or Egypt.
The local Emirs or appointed governors paid tributes to one of these powerful centers in return to governing their internal affairs, participating in military campaigns and defending the political dominions and interests of the regional Great Sultans. The reigning Sultan of Egypt had the upper hand in the period of the novel in the Near East region.
In the 10th century, two dynasties ruled part of the Middle East.
In Egypt, the Shiite Moslem Fatimid dynasty, coming from Northern Africa established their Caliphate in Cairo and stretched its influence to Aleppo in Syria; their successor the Ayyubid Sunni Moslem dynasty, from Kurdish descent, displaced the Fatimid and then the Mameluke (the serfs who came to hold high political and military powers in the Ayyubid dynasty) rose to power and defeated the Mogul invasion in two crucial battles in Palestine in 1260 at Elbostan.
In Iran, the Seljuk dynasty stretched their empire to Samarqand, Bukhara, Khorassan, Afghanistan, part of Turkey, Syria and part of Lebanon. They fought the Crusaders in the Near East during most of their reign through the intermediary of their appointed “Atabeks” in Turkey and Syria.
The Seljuk dynasty was taken over by the Khowarasmi dynasty whose Sultans were at odd with the Caliphate of Baghdad and helped the hordes of Genghis Khan the Mogul, led by his son Holako, to enter and devastate Baghdad in 1258 which ended the “Arabic/Islamic” Empire.
The Moguls established two Viceroys in Iraq, one at Mosul in the Northern part and the second in Baghdad for the Southern part of Iraq. The Arabic Era that lasted for 5 centuries ended as a cultural and organizational influence. The Emirs in Palestine were generally affiliated to the Sultan of Egypt. .
The societies in the Levant region have experienced a different level of organizational skills and the beginning of the application of the rudiment written rules of Laws from their interaction with the European Crusaders. (Note that Lebanon and particularly Beirut was the center of law studies during the Roman Empire from 100 to 600 AC)
We don’t have much information about the status of Mount Lebanon in that period or about its Emirs, its social structure, its allegiances, its demographic constituency or its economic development.
We assume that the Crusaders left a strong impact on the inhabitants in Mount Lebanon which forced the Arab Emirs to start relocating many Arabic tribes from Southern Iraq into the Mount Lebanon regions to counterbalance the Christian population (Mostly the Maronite and the Christian Orthodox affiliated to Byzantium empire).
Even before the advent of the Arabic Empire, Christian monasteries were numerous and spread out throughout the Near East and Iraq and occupied the top of mountains and hills and the best areas near fresh water sources in the same fashion you notice them currently in Mount Lebanon.
The monks had their special chambers/grotto (kelayye) for retreats and prayers. Monasteries were very prosperous, mainly producing and selling beer, and maintained exquisite gardens of fruit trees, flowers and vegetables and were well stocked in provisions from their land and donations of the faithful.
During the Arabic Empire, monasteries were required to set up annexes of hostels in order to receive wary travelers and to lodge and feed them. Usually, the relatives of monks maintained these hostels; Caliphates, Emirs, and well to do noblemen used to patronize the monasteries and spent days in these quiet domains to eat, drink local wine and beer and have great time away from the scrutiny of city dwellers.
The monasteries in the Levant suffered during the Crusaders’ period because of the bad manners of the European invaders, their robbery and plunder, but the monasteries in Iraq and Eastern Turkey were as prosperous as ever because the crusaders did not venture deep in the Arabic Empire, beyond Antaquia.
Many castles were demolished during that bloody period, a few were partially rehabilitated but a lot of reconstruction of war infrastructure was needed. What is important to note is that wars were no longer waged using chars with spiked wheels that harvest feet or employed exotic animals such as elephants as during the Antiquity.
Canons of wars were not invented yet, except may be in remote China where they were used during the main ceremonies related to their standing emperors.
Wars were still waged with infantry, cavalry and archers in the conventional ways. Newly designed catapults for throwing rocks at castle walls and entrances were in use by rich nations with well equipped and sophisticated armies. The full metal armor used by the crusaders was replaced by the noblemen to a vest of meshed chains and a metal helmet: The climate may not have been suitable to European fashion since we do enjoy at least 7 months of hot and dry seasons.
Before the Arabic/Islamic Empire, the region paid its tribute to the Byzantine Empire in Constantinople. During the Arabic hegemony, the Christian people paid their tribute to the Caliphates in one of the successive capitals in Mecca, Damascus, Baghdad or Cairo and later they paid it to the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul.
In modern times they were under the colonial powers of either France (in Lebanon and Syria) or Great Britain (in Iraq, Palestine, Jordan and Egypt). Nowadays, the whole region is mostly under the control of the USA with Israel playing the role of a lesser junior partner.
Indeed, a Zionist State was created as a standing mercenary army to keep the region under close control and divided.
In the period of our novel, the Mameluke dynasty had conquered all of Syria, Lebanon and Palestine with the exclusion of Iraq which was under the Mogul and later the Tatar invaders.
The Mameluke established 6 Viceroys in Damascus, Aleppo and Hama (in current Syria), Tripoli in Lebanon, Safad and Karak in Palestine.
Most of the coastal cities in Lebanon were ruined because of the successive attacks to dislodge the remaining Crusaders and also because the trading caravans stopped passing through them. The Mameluke did not invade Mount Lebanon militarily at this stage but made sure to collect the requisite tribute and set up special coastal guards from Turkmen and Kurdish origins to prevent any recurring European invasions.
While the feudal nobleman outside Mount Lebanon was an appointed Mameluke military officer whose sole interest in the land was to collect his due profit because it was temporarily allocated to him, the feudal landlord in Mount Lebanon was a native and actually resided in his property and was the authority in organizing the life of the residents who usually were of the same religious denomination.
The current borders of the Republic of Lebanon were drawn by the French General Gouro in 1920 after he militarily entered Damascus at the end of the First World War. What was formerly known as Lebanon encompassed only Mount Lebanon.
The northern regions of Tripoli and Akkar were part of the “Wilayat” of Tripoli; the city of Tripoli was the capital of the “Wilayat” of the Viceroy of Tripoli and it extended in Syria to include the towns of Homs and Tartus and the Lebanese littoral including Beirut.
The Bekaa Valley was part of the “Wilayat” of Damascus, and the southern regions, including the cities of Sidon and Tyr were part of the “Wilayat” of Acre in northern Palestine.
The Viceroys of Tripoli, Damascus, Safad and Acre paid allegiance to either the Sultan of Egypt in Cairo, Istanbul in Turkey, or the Shah of Iran depending on which empire was the master of the Middle East at different periods in history.
In the sixteen century, at the start of the push of the Ottoman’s empire to expand toward Syria, there have been attempts for a self-determination status in Mount Lebanon. The Druze chieftain of the Maan tribe in the Chouf county, Emir Maan the First, managed to unite all the counties in Mount Lebanon and then expanded toward Syria in the north and Palestine in the south.
The Ottoman Sultan became suspicious of his intentions, militarily quelled his ambitions and decapitated him in Istanbul. His grandson Fakhr El Dine succeeded to reunite Mount Lebanon and expanded his authority even further to include the Bekaa Valley after crushing the army of the Viceroy of Damascus in Anjar.
Emir Maan the Second opened negotiations with Florence to supply him with modern weapons and expanded trade to Europe and Egypt. Again he overshot his potentials and was defeated by the Ottoman Sultan, was exiled to Istanbul and put to death within three years of his captivity.
A century later, Emir Bechir Chehab the Second in the Chouf district reunited Mount Lebanon, expanded his authority, and allied himself with General Napoleon Bonaparte and Mohamed Ali in Egypt against the Ottoman and the British Empires. His ambition was foiled and was exiled to Malta for the remaining of his life.
These Emirs extended the dominion of Mount Lebanon to parts of Syria and Palestine once they secured the unity of Mount Lebanon but they failed to go beyond maintaining law and order during their reign and no viable administrative structures or solid social and public institutions were established toward building a stable and lasting state nation.
In the Antiquity, the Phoenicians/Canaanite city-states of Byblos, Sidon, and Tyr expanded their dominions to Syria and Palestine at different periods in their separate ascendancies. While wealth was amassed from integrated maritime enterprising complexes such as warehousing, ship repairing and trade transports by sea and land, the real source of power of these city-states resided in trained skilled workers, inland bread basket plains, timber from the adjacent mountain forests and ready stones for constructing magnificent temples and for fortifying almost impregnable maritime castles.
In the mid nineteenth century, a local reformist by the name of Tanios Chahine lead a commune of peasants at the town of Antelias against the feudal and clerical privileges in the Metn. His movement resisted two years against the onslaught of the powerful enemies of the people until the latter forces of both denominations, Christians and Druze, masterminded a civil war in Mount Lebanon in order to strengthen confessionalism and their hold on power.
The civil war started in 1860 in Mount Lebanon between the Maronite and Druze and was localized in the Chouf and part of the Bekaa Valley including the town of Zahle; it lasted two years and opened the doors for the European interventions in our internal affairs that secured and maintained the old system.
The Levant was called by various names throughout history; the Arab Empire called it either the Fertile Crescent starting with the Euphrates and Tiger Rivers and ending with the Al Assy river, Litany and Jordan Rivers encompassing Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine or Al Sham (currently referring to the environ of Damascus) because the region was on the left of Mecca so that the region on its right was labeled Yemen. The European colonialists called it Levant because it is where the sun dawned on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea.
The first wave of Levantine immigrants to the United States and Latin America was identified as “Turks” because they were citizen of the Ottoman Empire, then the second wave of Levantine immigrants that spread to Africa and Egypt was identified as Syrians, regardless of their present nationalities after the defeat of Turkey in the First World War.
There were many Syrian luminaries at the end of the 19th century, immigrants and locals, who wrote extensively of the need for reforms and the rejuvenation of the nation among them Jubran Khalil Jubran, Kawakibi, Youssef El Azam, Boutros Boustany, Shebly Chmayel, and Ibrahim Yaziji.
However, there were few leaders for organizing the people into political parties.
In the late 19th century two overseas organizations from Levantine descendants proclaimed that the Syrian Nation is constituted of Lebanon, the actual Syrian State, Palestine and Jordan and published their reforms and ideologies in newspapers.
The first group, located in New York (1899) and calling itself “The Young Syrian Party“, was lead by Emir Youssef Shadid Abi Lameh and based on the following principles:
1) Striving toward an independent Syria with natural borders from Ras Aqaba to El Arish;
2) Working for a comprehensive agreement to unify the Arabic Nations;
3) Instituting a total separation between the religious and civil authorities;
4) Nationalizing the riches and properties of the religious clergy and assigning for them the necessary funds for their subsistence;
5) Unifying the schooling programs throughout the Nation;
6) Imposing mandatory military enlistments to reflect the will of the citizens for holding on to a Nation.
The second group was formed in Sao Paolo, Brazil, in 1922 and was lead by Jamil Maaluf and Asaad Bechara and later Khalil Saadi (the father of Antoun Saadi who created the Syria national Social party in 1933 in Lebanon). They named their political association the “Syrian National Party” which adopted the basic principles of the former party but added more principles with detailed exposition.
For example, the “Syrian National Party” specifically advocated the requisite of civil marriages among the different religious sects, adopting the Arabic language as the national language in all the private and public schools, giving Lebanon and Palestine self administrative autonomy and prohibiting the religious clergy from interfering in the civil status laws and executive decisions.
Unfortunately, these two political parties were never transplanted in their original homeland and did not take roots as formal political organization in Lebanon, Palestine or Syria.
This section will raise controversies among both the isolationists and greater Pan Arab nationalists save that live and current facts should not be sacrificed at the alter of the whimsical confessional minds: we have a disposition of fabricating our history on flimsy emotional exigencies.
The only political party that is disciplined and grounded on solid ideological principles that proclaims Syria as a complete Nation and One People and survived today is called the “Syrian National Social Party”.
This political party was founded in 1932 by Antoun Saadi, a native Lebanese of Dhour Chouweir in the Metn, during the French mandate of Lebanon as an underground party. He was an immigrant in Latin America from Brazil, relocated to Lebanon and taught at the American University of Beirut and founded his party. He was then forced to exile in 1937 by the French colonial authority and settled in Argentina during the Second World War.
Saadi returned to Lebanon in 1947 to an unprecedented mass welcome at the airport (50,000 from all parts of the Syrian States) to reorganize his party and affirm its ideology after a few discrepancies in views among its leaders emanating from the independence of Lebanon during his exile.
The members of this party celebrate in July 8 the martyrdom of its founder, Antoun Saadi, who was summarily executed in 1949 in an extra-judicial trial of 2 days when he was 45 years old (a kangaroo trial that forbade a defense lawyer). He represented a serious danger as an organized force that exposed the forces of the defeatist isolationists and sectarianisms in our communities against the existential Zionist enemy of Israel.
While the Communist party in Syria was the first truly secular organization established in the first quarter of the 20th century, Antoun Saadi was the first leader to create a secular political party affirming that Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan and Iraq form one nation and one society.
The ideology of the latter political party was based on a whole project, politically, socially, philosophically, culturally and economically. This party believes that the Syrian Nation is one of the four Arabic nations; the three other Arabic nations being: the Arabic Peninsula Nation constituted of current Saudi Monarchy, Yemen, Oman and the Arab Emirate Union of States, then the Nile Arabic Nation of Egypt and Sudan, and then the North African Arabic Nation of Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania.
The party was and still is secular in its ideology and practice, and even during Lebanon civil war of (1975-1990) it did not participate in the killing on confessional basis.
The Syrian National Social Party exists officially in Lebanon and lately in Syria with substantial Palestinian adherents. Antoun Saadi was less successful politically to share responsibilities in any government or to unite our nation against Zionism and the colonial exploitation to our main national resources in oil with no significant strategic political and economic returns.
One characteristic that stand out in the concept of secular nationalism in the Levant, especially in Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine, is that almost all the nationalist political party leaders or founders were minority Christians.
For example, Michel Aflak the founder of the Baath Party, still in power in Syria and for three decades in Iraq, George Habache the founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Naef Hawatmeh the founder of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Antoun Saadi the founder of the Syrian National Social Party.
It appears that the Muslims could not shed out the notion that their allegiance might be to any power that did not wrap itself up with the mantle of the Caliphate of Islam. Even during the First World War the British had to seek support from the so-called House of the descended of the Prophet Mohammad in the tribe of El-Hashemite in Mecca.
It is no surprise that the cornerstone of the doctrines of the salafi Sunni Moslem political parties is the reinstitution of the Caliphate in the Muslim world.
Rainbow over the Levant: End notes and Post notes (fiction novel)
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 19, 2008
Rainbow over the Levant: End notes and Post notes (fiction story)
End notes
Mount Lebanon continued to flourish at a diminished rate. And while the Mamulks of Egypt refrained from further military campaigns, because the expenses of expeditionary forces had no financial return in Mount Lebanon, the authority and unity of the Levant’s governments were disintegrating: prompted mainly by the practical and pragmatic average leaders who responded to the sobering realization that they would never be allowed to be a significant political force in the Middle East.
Mount Lebanon reverted as a province to the Viceroy of Tripoli, with the same original conditions of self administration, and gradually succumbed under the traditional feudal and confessional system. Many Emirs were successful in strengthening their hold by offering many carrots than whips, and maintaining a sort of false elective position in municipalities.
Asaad married a daughter of the Emir Shehab tribe in the Chouf; Wujdan married into the family of a prominent feudal lord of Abi Lamaa in the Capital Mtein, and Jacob the son of Noura and Antoun married from the Emir Maan tribe in Deir Kamar in the Chouf.
Noura never returned to Lebanon and did not attend her son’s wedding, but instituted centers of learning in Rome and Florence, which were later to be acquired by the Maronite clergy. Samar was the official administrator of an ambulatory circus/theater business and Mariam married her lover Ignatios and took to editing the theatrical pieces submitted to her for the circus. Mariam occasionally directed and produced drama shows for the exclusive benefit of her adoptive daughter company.
The consequences for the success and ultimate failure of the insurgency movement were not insignificant. In local politics, the Emirs and feudal Lords understood that the citizens in Mount Lebanon could not be governed is the same heavy handed tactics, by simple decrees from any Emir as was commonly done by the Viceroys. Most of the rules and regulations were enforced because of agreements among the main warlords and the clergy; even the local chieftain had a veto power in his district and could delay the implementation of many central orders indefinitely, unless a convenient tradeoff was negotiated.
In external politics, the Sultans in Egypt, and later in Istanbul, understood that, once an Emir from Mount Lebanon managed to unite its people, a united Mount Lebanon was to naturally expand into Syria and Palestine and prove to be a bothersome foe.
The formal strategy was that the best politics to maintaining the allegiance of the people in Mount Lebanon to the central authority was to divide the region into sectarian counties, which would insure the impossibility of uniting Mount Lebanon.
Many foreign tribes from Iraq and the Caucasus were transplanted in the various districts of Mount Lebanon. However, Maronite families, for economic reasons, infiltrated most of the districts as cheap land laborers “fallaheen” and settled in which would, eventually, cause dissents among the religious sects two centuries later, and lead to several civil wars.
After the first civil war in 1860, four European Nations claimed protection for their corresponding Christian sects: France for the Maronites, England for the Protestants and Anglicans, Russia for the Orthodox, and Austria for the remaining various Christian sects.
Post note
Two years after Antoun’s martyrdom, a valuable manuscript was found in the cave where he was hiding and preparing for the second revolution. The First Emir noted his grand plans for his new Republic; the first phase envisioned a federation of States in present Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Palestine that could withstand a Tatar resumption of hostilities, along with strong support and cooperation with the power in Egypt under proper circumstances. This federation could enjoy natural barrier borders except in the southern region with Egypt, unless part of the Sinai desert could be used as a buffer zone.
The desert between Syria and Iraq would be inhabited with settlements designed to map out routes of possible invasions from Iraq or Turkey. The Zagros or Torus Mountains between Turkey and Syria and the Bakhtiar Mountains between Iraq and Iran were formidable natural barriers that could hamper any invasion from the North, given proper intelligence were supplied in due time.
The First Emir also suggested election of a President for the united federation for a six-year term and renewable for only another six years term. Each State would elect a Prime Minister and a State parliament and these parliaments would elect representatives to the Federated Senate that elect the President for the Union.
The whole region was under dominion of large Empires for long periods in history and it happened that a window of opportunity under a charismatic leader unified the people of Mount Lebanon for three decades, and proved that they were worth instituting a civil society that could influence positively the Greater Near East.
In fact the Levant managed to be unified twice more under the Emir Fakhr El Din of the Maan tribe in the seventeenth century, and Emir Beshir of the Shehab tribe in the nineteenth century during the Ottoman hegemony, and they naturally expanded their dominions to parts of Syria and Palestine.
There are many occasions in our land to celebrate Antoun. Some of the Antouns have European spellings like Antoine, or Russian like Anton, or Latin as in Antonios or Greek like Antonionus or Manatios; some Antouns are Catholic Saints or other Christian denomination Saints, some call him by nicknames like Tony, Tanios or Tannus, but to our people there is a myth that a brave martyr, and a 14th century hero, by the name Antoun unified us and defeated obscurantism.
The next leader who will be successful in unifying us as a viable geopolitical power in a united demographic bloc in this century will be given the highest honorable title of Antoun
Rainbow over the Levant (fiction, continue)
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 19, 2008
In self defense
Adal and his Levantine government had advanced intelligence of the main goals of this chastising military campaign and opted for a reduced resistance so as to shorten the duration of this inevitable calamity. Families with children in the Metn County living in villages at altitudes less than 800 meters were evacuated to Cyprus and Greece. The single able bodies of both genders were transferred to higher altitude and only the eldest population who refused to move from their locations was allowed to remain and care for the properties of the evacuees. Most of the supplies in food and war necessities were transported to the highest altitudes and the routes to the Bekkaa Valley were monitored and defended.
The warehouses in the port of Beirut were depleted and transferred to ports in the North. To appease the inhabitants of Beirut the Levant government promised them that supplies would be secured by sea; by reducing the inventory of food and repair parts it was hoped that the army of the Sultan of Egypt would decide to shorten its campaign of rampage for shortage in necessary valuables. As a matter of facts, the sea attacks of the Levant Navy concentrated their activities to the Palestinian ports and supply lines coming from Egypt. This strategy forced the Mameluk’s army to start foraging in Palestine raising several upheavals among the population and putting up sporadic resistance.
Asaad, the second son of Antoun was appointed army chief of the Metn region while Mustafa and Adal moved their headquarters to the Kesrouan and the Byblos mountain regions where the Mameluk’s General decided to concentrate his attacks of plunder and devastation. Noura was still ambassador of the Levantine Republic to Italy in order to secure political and maritime support for the Republic. Mariam was responsible for the organization of the logistics of the transferred population who had no relatives in the mountain regions but was plagued with family problems; her real daughter Sahar took the opportunity to vent her fears and her long held love-hate feelings and told her mother that she never appreciated her sincere struggle to please her and win her love. She told Mariam that her adoptive daughter Samar was allowed many privileges and independence of movement that was denied her out of lack of confidence in her. Sahar demanded permission to travel overseas, was granted sufficient funds and never returned home
The knowledge of this Mameluk’s General of the fortifications and impregnable towns at altitude over 900 meters above sea level in the Metn region changed his plan of attack to concentrate mainly in the Kesrouan and Byblos Counties North of Mount Lebanon. The General set siege to Beirut with promise not to devastate it because it was a Moslem town and because this campaign was to punish the Christian infidels in Mount Lebanon who have been defying the authority of the Sultan of Egypt.
While encircling Beirut from the land because the sea was firmly out of his reaches, the General advanced toward Kesrouan and committed atrocities for 3 months without attempting to advance higher up to the mountains and then descended toward the Byblos County low lands. He sent a messenger to Adal claiming that his mission could now be considered accomplished if he surrendered personally and was made prisoner along with Mustafa, otherwise the campaign would have to last for another year until the wishes of the Sultan are satisfied. Mustafa and Adal had put up an excellent resistance and waited until the Mameluk’s General started his retreats toward the seashore to wage losing battles with the purpose of getting killed in battles and spare the other regions any more potential calamities. The General satisfied his Sultan’s orders of ravaging many parts of Mount Lebanon and brought back to Cairo the heads of Mustafa and Adal who were killed in the battle field.
Rainbow over the Levant (fiction, continue)
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 19, 2008
Chapter 19: Martyrs of a Nation
The initial negotiations were for the Turkish Emir’s army to retreat to Lattakieh in Northern Syria and for Lebanon to pay tribute to the former Syrian lands it had in possession before the Turkish invasion. Lebanon agreed to pay tribute in return for the withdrawal of the Turkish army beyond the Zagros mountain chains and retained only Alexandrite. It was implicitly understood that Lebanon would fail to pay a dime and Turkey would come back after building a fresh navy, may be in five years. While the Turkish army was retreating toward Lattakieh, Lebanon sent an army into Syria and finished off the lost and demoralized Turkish contingent there. The resistance lingered for a while and sent a strong message to the invaders that a political compromise was an acceptable strategy for the time being.
The Nation underwent much turmoil but the spirit of democracy, equality under the law and freedom of expression set the tone for gradual reforms in most of the region. Meanwhile, President Antonios Lucas Fares was still suffering in Egypt severe humiliation and imprisonment for the last 3 years; the President of the Levant was decapitated in 1409 for the danger he represented to traditional and divinely inspired kingdoms.
The Republic of the Levant could not recover from its previous war and there was such a defeatist sense that the big neighboring powers decided on its fate. The leader and soul of the Nation was imprisoned in Egypt and no alternate viable leader could be generated with enough vision and charisma to replace Antoun.
In 1410, the Mameluk Sultan ordered a large army to ravage Mount Lebanon, with the mission to bring back the heads of the elected second President Adal, Antoun’s eldest son who was in his mid thirties, and the head of the Defense Minister Mustafa. The election of Adal was for a transitional period of two years to continue the term of his father and prepare for another Legislative assembly.
The newly appointed Viceroy of Safad in Palestine was to lead the military campaign. This Viceroy was named Kamal Bey from Turkish descent and was a general in the Mameluk army and had intricate commercial dealings with the Republic of the Levant and intended on taking over some of the prosperous businesses.
Rainbow over the Levant: Tamerlane hordes enter Damascus
(A chapter in my novel Rainbow over the Levant)
Hordes from the North
In 140o, Tamerlane (Timor Lank) crushed the Ottoman Sultan forces and put the Sultan in a cage, and used the cage as a step to mount his horse. This newly Turkish Empire (with no naval forces) was enfeebled and the Byzantium Empire enjoyed a couple of decades freed from paying annual dues to its neighboring nemesis.
In the same time, the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt was regaining ascendancy after Tamerlane withdrew from Damascus in 1403. The Sultan of Egypt could demand favors from the new Sultan of Turkey and incited him to step in and crush the nascent Republic of the Levant in Lebanon.
In 1410, the Viceroy of Aleppo whose domain extended from Alexandretta, Lattakieh, and all the way eastward to the Jazyra (The northern part between the two great rivers of Euphrates and the Tiger) was still badly rattled after the destruction of Aleppo by Tamerlane and was thus in a serious predicament when the Ottoman army moved toward Syria.
The Viceroy knew that if the Turkish army crossed the Zagros mountain chains or managed to capture the port and city of Alexandretta then he would be done for. His Emirate was inhabited by various Christian sects dating back to early Christianity such as Armenians, Assyrians, Syriacs as well as an amalgam of the more known and well recognized sects.
The Viceroy of Aleppo had received orders from his master the Mameluk’s Sultan to cooperate with the Turks in their coastal advance toward Lebanon, and thus he wavered with the Levant’s government and compromised to the end.
Ultimately, he agreed with the Republic of the Levant to acquire free reign in the port of Alexandretta for an annual tribute and have access to the Zagros Mountains if war were declared.
Most of the livestock were routed toward Jazyra with the long shot possibility that a famished army might redirect its route where there was more food close to the Tatar territory, and thus having to deal with another military force. It was a strategic gamble which might draw the Tatars of Timorlank to reorient their expansion toward Turkey after retreating from Damascus and Aleppo.
The Turkish army experienced desertion but it was not serious enough to divert it from its plan.
The Syrian Viceroy in Damascus got the hint that he was no longer appreciated in Cairo since his assistance was not required and no financial support was contemplated in this coming invasion. He was also under pressure from Damascus merchants with close connection with the Levant Republic to support the Lebanese uprising for defense and unity.
The Lebanese army sent a detachment of war consultants to manage and direct the war from the Syrian front with intelligence confirming that the Turkish army was directing a two pronged attack toward both the Bekaa Valley and Tripoli. .
The Lebanese had excellent defensible positions around the city of Tripoli and access to the nearby mountains in the East and the sea to the West. The strategy of the Levant army was to slow down the Turkish advance by putting up a defensive stand by the Awwaly River where the Turkish army was to split its forces after crossing the river.
The strategy of Turkish army was excellent because the narrow strip of land between the sea and the mountains would prevent large scale maneuvers for a 35,000 strong army while sending a large detachment to the Bekaa would have a dual purpose. The Levantine army would have to tie up a major part of its smaller forces in the Bekaa and in the same time the Turkish army would not be short on food reserves if the war dragged on.
The first defensive stand on the Awwali River was meant to prevent the Turkish army from sending a large detachment to the Bekaa by inflicting substantial losses on its advanced contingent around well defended positions. Two defensive lines were prepared; one along the River and another one, well hidden in a sparsely dense forest and on the edge of a low hill, two kilometers away; a long ditch, 5 meters wide and 1, 50 meter deep was dug and fortified.
The first line of defense was for testing the maneuvering capabilities and military arsenal of the Turkish army in order to capitalize on the information to maneuver around the second defensive line, and also to nag the enemy into an angry and unprepared assault forward.
The soldiers of the first line of defense were feddayins because they were forewarned that no help would be forthcoming to save them if overwhelmed by the enemy forces.
Mustafa, the military leader of the Levant army, perched on his black stallion looked much older than he really was and suffering from back ache, felt in a victory mood before the young and determined faces in front of him. The pain eased while delivering his harangue:
“Soldiers of the Great Levant Nation! The enemy across this tiny river is a vigorous young army, coming from a rough region even harsher than our mountains. Those soldiers are used to hardships and their goal is evident: looting Mount Lebanon. Our goal is different: resisting a savage invasion determined to ruin our prosperity and kill our families for money and valuables. Our purpose is clear: frustrating the plans of the Sultan of Egypt to humiliate our spirit of independence and trample our hard earned liberty for a better life for our children. The Sultan of the Mameluks is testing our will to survive as a full fledge Nation; he thinks that by detaining our leader and President our Nation will crumble into nothingness. We are here to prove to all nations that as free citizens we are born leaders and can generate leaders to defeat stronger nations if our freedom and liberty are threatened”.
“Soldiers of the free Levant Nation; the enemy across the Awwali River is determined not to retreat without its promised booty. The Sultan of the Mameluks had lured them with stories of riches and precious prizes hidden in Mount Lebanon. The treacherous Sultan of the Mameluks who forgot our loyalty for centuries has also forgot that we have been preparing ourselves to defend our way of life and that we are ready to pay the heavy price with our young and warm blood to hold on to every piece of land in our glorious Nation”.
“Soldiers of the haughty Levant Nation; we have no choice but to stop the Turkish army from advancing toward Mount Lebanon, the “Promised Land” by the Sultan of Egypt. We will have to wage several battles because they are more numerous than us but we know the land and we have a higher determination to win. The families of our martyrs will be remunerated handsomely and the names of the martyrs will be carried as badges of honors and remembered for centuries to come as valorous citizen-soldiers fighting for legitimate values and for safeguarding our self-determination over our destiny. Long live President Antoun! Long live the Nation of the Levant!”
This defensive stand bore fruits; first, the cavalry of the Turkish army chasing the retreating defenders was decimated at the second defensive line where the Levant army was in waiting behind the well fortified ditch; and second, the contingent to be sent to the Bekaa Valley was reduced when the Turkish army realized that it would have to contend with a highly organized army.
Before the Levantine army retreated in an organized manner to Tripoli, preparing for the decisive second round of battles, it had buried its fallen soldiers in the ditch and planted trees in honor of their courage. All the injured were retrieved and evacuated in an efficient manner which impressed the enemy. In the mean time the expert consultants of the Levantine army, dispatched to organize war preparations of the army of the Viceroy of Damascus, managed to draw in a sizable contingent of the Turkish army toward the borders of Syria away from the Bekaa Valley and far from the main body of the Turkish army.
During that campaign of tactical retreat in the Syrian front, the Lebanese army was also tactically retreating toward the major coastal city of Tripoli.
At this critical junction the Maronite Patriarch in the northern district of Mount Lebanon announced an edict to all the Maronite Christians to immediately join the Army of the Republic. The inhabitants of the villages in Bshare, Ehden and Zgorta were whipped in to frenzy and contributed greatly to victory.
The strong castle of Tripoli was the magnet that attracted the forward Turkish army to advance hastily without much planning. The Turkish forward contingent of 8,000 soldiers encircled Tripoli and set up its siege waiting for the heavy equipment of siege to arrive within a week with the main body of the army.
For four days and nights the Turkish army was harassed and could not enjoy any rest or sleep. They were lured into attacking the Levantine army in their mountain strongholds and were repulsed with heavy casualties. On the fifth day and late afternoon, the Lebanese army descended from the mountains and cut off the forward Turkish army in two.
The Turkish army found itself totally encircled from all sides and from the sea. The Lebanese army benefited from several advantages: an excellent knowledge of the terrain and a drastic edge in the contribution for reconnaissance and signaling intelligence from the citizens. The slaughter lasted till nine in the night and by day break the retreating Turkish soldiers were attacked by the Levantine cavalry from behind and made prisoners.
In that battle the Levant army introduced its Tortoise; it was a huge, elongated and enclosed cylindrical housing char, mounted on five pairs of wide wheels and driven by protected four pairs of cows and carrying a dozen archers. This war device was slow and not that efficient at this stage of its development but, as a new monster entering battles, it impressed upon the enemy and destabilized their onslaughts wherever one of the few Tortoises appeared on the battle ground.
The Turkish army acknowledged the futility and the unacceptable losses in that campaign and released its siege on Tripoli. The lack of navy support and the determination of a well trained and well equipped army fighting with vengeance and courage were determinant in sending messengers for peace negotiations.
The Sultan famous host
Rainbow over the Levant (a novel)
Antoun, President of Mount Lebanon, drove in a modest caravan to Acre and boarded a Levantine navy ship to Alexandria where he was met by the dignitaries, the remaining personnel of the Levant Consulate and emigrants…
After two days of sight seeing in Alexandria, he headed out in a lush caravan to Cairo to meet the Sultan.
The Grand Vizier of Egypt welcomed him with the customary protocol and the President was made to wait a whole week for an appointment with the Sultan. The President of the Levant offered his valuable gifts and presented to the Sultan the respect of the Levantine government and citizens and reminded him of his loyalty toward the maintaining of peace, security and prosperity throughout the Mameluke empire. The Sultan accepted the gift with modest thanks, followed by immediate denouncement:
The Sultan: “We have been hearing disturbing news about your lack of loyalty to our authority. We will allow the Grand Vizier to speak now”.
The Grand Vizier (GV): “We have been receiving very alarming reports for many years of your friendship with many infidel Monarchs and Princes. As you surely know, His highness the Sultan and his forefathers have sacrificed dearly to defeat and chase out the infidel Crusaders from our lands.
We have been vigilant and swore to God Almighty never to permit the infidels to desecrate our Holy Lands again. You have been dealing with the infidels for more than 25 years and you graciously welcomed them to travel throughout our dominion with your full knowledge of how it displeased our Highness the Sultan of all Egypt, Syria and Palestine.
You fled like a rabbit before the barbarian Tatars, leaving our riches and interests to be captured and our Moslem believers at their mercy without any opposition to save our Majesty’s Honor and Dignity.
You have been gallivanting in the infidel’s kingdoms, eating their bread, salt and their dirty pork meat, drinking wine with total disrespect to our values, tradition and customs.
We have been very patient with your behavior and allegiances because you paid the requisite tributes on time and managed to establish peace in his Majesty’s kingdom with little financial recourse to our treasury, but we have run out of patience lately. You have been killing and executing Moslem believers without due recourse to our religious legal system or the approval of the appointed Viceroys.
You have disturbed our governing system, proclaimed a heretical written Constitution against the well founded rules and laws of the Chariaa and the Holy Koran.
You went even as far as giving yourself a new title of President that His Majesty the Sultan loath from the bottom of his heart. We have every reason to suspect that you intended to part company with our cherished Sultan of all Egypt, Syria and Palestine. Can you respond to these charges of treachery and disobedience?”
The President calmly retorted:
“For 25 years, not a single European army dared to set foot on our Holy Land from the confines of Turkey to Northern Africa and our honor is preserved. His Highness knows perfectly well that had we had the means to fight the barbarian Tatars we would have fought them as lions and would have saved Aleppo and Damascus from the infamy of falling in the hands of Timorlank.
I chose a harsh exile from my homeland, including Egypt, to save our citizens from Timorlank wrath to carry out his threats of invading our lands as reported to me by Ibn Khaldoun the messenger.
I kept my part of the bargain and stayed away as long as Timorlank was in Damascus. I don’t eat pork and don’t like wine; otherwise my people would be too drunk to keep the peace.
I delayed as much as I could to ratify the written Constitution, but public pressure, without your political support in that difficult period, forced my hands to signing a system of government that was not to my liking also. I would be pleased if your Majesty deigned to mention the names of his counselors who dared to spread calumnies in his presence.”
The GV: “I humbly ask his Majesty to permit the deletion of the last infamous sentence of this long list of unfounded rejoinders.”
The Sultan: “It would be almost impossible to restrict the number of informers and advisers, since we have been listening to these charges for many years with accumulated validation.”
The President: “I empathize with your Majesty. I have been surrounded also with many close counselors who said what they thought would please my ears and chased away from my presence the just and honest people who had valid claims and recriminations.”
The GV: “Your Majesty, it seems that this infidel Emir from Mount Lebanon is taking much liberty in your presence.”
The President: “Your Majesty, before the infamous invasion of the barbarous Tatars of Syria, Mount Lebanon enjoyed prosperous trade relations with mighty Egypt and every one was well off and praying for the long life of Your Majesty. If these trade embargoes are lifted we certainly would have the means to save the integrity of His Majesty’s territory. We always have been straight in keeping our word and delivering on agreements as the Grand Vizier acknowledged.”
The Sultan: “We will be hearing more of you in the coming month. You may dispose safely and in honor.”
The Sultan was biased to his close counselors who harshly denounced the President as an agitator to foreign powers and kept reminding the Sultan that he was the sole Emir in the Mameluk’s Empire who dared visit the kingdoms of the execrable European invaders. These couselors mercilessly hammered the fact that for two centuries the Crusaders desecrated the Moslems religious sites and prevented the Moslems going on pilgrimage (haj) to Jerusalem.
A month later, the President was confined to a small villa. The retinue of the President was drastically reduced and visitors had to be granted special permission from the Grand Vizier of Egypt. Three months later, the President of the Levant was officially detained.
The government back home showed unanimous support for its leader and decided to put up an all out resistance to the aggressor coming from Turkey in honor of the new pride, freedom and self determination they had enjoyed for three decades.
A stand for Liberty: Rainbow over the Levant
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 19, 2008
A stand for Liberty: Rainbow over the Levant (fiction novel)
Part 6: Mustafa’s period (1405-1410)
Chapter 18: A stand for Liberty
A huge army coming from Turkey was preparing a devastating campaign of rampage and desolation in Mount Lebanon, because traditional chauvinism and sectarianism could not swallow the existence of a neighboring prosperous and enterprising small community. This Turkish army was composed of three tribes that recently immigrated from the Caucasus region of current Azerbaijan, Georgia, Chechnya… The tribes were fresh convert to Islam, the Sunni sect, and have settled in the Anatolia plateau, close to the sources of the Euphrates River. They could not fathom how a heretic State could be administered according to civic laws not based on the Islamic Chariaa…
News of the revolutionary spirit, unacceptable social values, and political system were very disturbing to the religious and monarchial systems surrounding the Republic. The clerics and landlords of these kingdoms endeavored to fire up the populations in neighboring powerful countries. President Antoun was certain that, if an armed resistance were opposed without a mass popular support to that invading force, Mount Lebanon would suffer for centuries to come.
The Lord President called for a convention of all political leaders and army officers. The regional leaders flocked to Beirut and convened for an entire week to expose the problems and share the facts of the new threats to the nation, and find consensus to differences in positions and to elect a new crisis government. The President organized community meetings, and consistently admonished his people to make the right decision and never to consider his personal safety a factor in their decisions.
President Antoun told them in no uncertain terms that, once the enemy army was allowed to enter the Nation, it would never leave peacefully, and if the enemy was permitted to have a say in the internal political affairs, then the Nation would be in for demonic plans for fueling hatred and sectarian animosity among its citizens, leading to eventual civil wars for years to come.
During the pandemonium of war preparation, the President received an urgent message from the Mamluk’s Sultan summoning him to personally pay his respect to Cairo. It was not a satisfactory timely summon for the President, but it was well planed by the Sultan to catch him in an anxious period with many opportunities.
The President wavered for long time into scheduling his trip, not because he was afraid of the chastisement awaiting him ,or the high possibility that he would not be permitted to come back, but because his daily routines were overpowering. The First Emir President realized that his bladder forced him to relieve himself every hour of the day, which sunk his spirit to its lowest levels.
Antoun has tried to go to bed early, but his bladder disrupted his sleep several times and ended up forming a group of late sleepers to entertain him until four in the morning. Waking up at nine in the morning was the hardest task for the President; he felt that sleeping did not reinvigorate his energy supply, as if he failed to breath during his sleep. After his mind woke up from its dreams, he would consciously practice forceful breathing sessions in bed to clear up his oppressed chest: He would form a fake large smile on his lips to awaken the muscles on his sunken face, and roll his closed eyes in all directions as prescribed by his personal eye doctor for his shortsightedness, and because his eyes would not open without internal will power.
He was still impressive in stature and not as bald as people of his age, but he knew that he was physically delicate and disintegrating faster than he hoped: he needed the best part of the morning for his body and mind to come alive and be ready to face people, head meetings, and the gruesome job of deciding on proposals and signing on documents.
The President of the Levant simply could not confront the young Sultan, all the formal State diplomatic lengthy schedules, procedures, and of visiting dignitaries in his precarious state, or disturb his familiar environment and daily routines.
The date of the visit was finally scheduled for him by the Sultan and the President reluctantly decided to accept the dangerous invitation of the Sultan of Egypt, hoping against all odds to negotiate a satisfactory deal for terms he knew in advance will be denied. The First Emir President figured that at least his Nation might gain a reprieve of valuable time for a possible changing political climate. In any event, he believed that popular support for costly resistance had a higher chance of success if he were detained by the Sultan.
Before leaving for Cairo, the President wrote his testimony to be read in due time and which said: “To the people of the Levant and the legal government. My last wish is to consider any agreement with the Sultan, while I am detained in Egypt, as null and void. You all need to understand that an agreement signed by a non free man is necessarily made under duress and unfair cunning. The President of this free Nation is not about to deliver any lands of the Republic of the Levant or the rights gained through years of struggle to any foreign power. We did not invest all these energies and forbearing periods so that a Pasha from Egypt reap the prosperous sate of affair and engage in dilapidating our hard-earned struggle for self-autonomy. If I return within 2 months, God is Great, if not, I order you to unite and prepare for hard times. The free and independent citizen of the Republic of the Levant will shoulder their duties as they have done for 3 decades against all odds. I have great confidence in Mustafa Baltagy, your Defense Minister, and I appoint him as my Viceroy for the duration of my absence. Long live the Republic of the Levant and its valorous citizens”.
The President had ordered Mustafa back from Tunisia because he considered him the most able to unite the Nation in an armed conflict in his absence, and because his return might satisfy the Sultan’s wishes and helped his case.
Rainbow over the Levant (fiction, continue)
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 19, 2008
Dictatorship
Gergis had been in Italy for six months when he was ambushed on a trip to Florence and killed with his secretary and coach driver. Investigations did not reveal the perpetrators but Noura received an anonymous letter two weeks too late warning her to use all her skills of persuasion to get Gergis to stay put in his villa and refrain from any travels until further information. Noura established a foundation in Gergis’ name for a students’ exchange between Rome and the Levant with all expenses paid for a year. The Italian students were to have learned Arabic for two years in her language institution in Rome and the Levantine students would already have been familiar with Latin.
Mustafa stayed 2 years in Tunisia and traveled to Algeria and Morocco drumming up support and raising an army to harass the Sultan of Egypt in due time. The Mameluk Sultan got word of Mustafa activities and sent under cover agents to North Africa to take note of Mustafa’s every movement, and he increased his diplomatic missions to the City-State Emirs wooing them for greater cooperation or threatening them if necessary to desist in facilitating Mustafa’s mission. A Levantine double agent who served in Cairo for two years was uncovered in Beirut for transmitting intelligence information on Mustafa’s activities.
The Sultan of Egypt opened secret negotiations with the President of the Levant planning to win on both scoreboards; he would weaken both the Turks and the Levant in a protracted war while averting Mustafa’s threat in Tunisia. The terms of the negotiations were that Egypt would refrain from any maritime support to the Turks, would reopen trade routes to the Levant on condition that Mustafa be recalled and more importantly that the President and his whole family pay the Mameluk Sultan an official visit to Cairo to finalize the protocol of agreements.
In the mean time, the Republic of the Levant underwent a sorry period of dictatorship. The spirit of the new militants was uncompromising; the new generation was not educated enough on the historical struggle of the elder leaders who sacrificed the best years of their lives in order to establish a united and equitable society against all odds. The perennial philosophy of just ends should circumvent ruthless means was accepted as a normal and justified attitude among the youth, especially in time of danger when unity of the mind in a nation and under the vision of an all encompassing leader was of paramount necessity.
The President was already in his sixties and lacked the energy of the youth’s self confidence to inspire respect for authority so that he felt unable for a while to counter this wave of extremism and preferred to wait for this new zeal to spend itself out and the trend of intolerance to wane before redirecting the energy of the new generation.
The opportunistic instinct for holding on to power inspired the President to redirect the energy of the zealots toward targeted representatives who challenged his earthly authority and were puzzled about the increase of public stone statutes for the Leader, or warned the Nation that the political system was in fact heading to an inherited Monarchy or the deification of the Leader. Arrests on charges of conniving with the enemy or betraying the Constitution of the Republic were common currency.
The detainees were harassed into retracting from their political positions under duress if necessary and confessing their wrong doings in public trials. Those political opposition leaders who persisted in their opinions were secretly eliminated or died in accidents. Two years of violence and mock trials against the so-called internal enemies of the revolution mowed down many innocents under flimsy charges and set the stage for fear and injustice that had been under control for decades.
Intelligence reports stated that the Sultan of Egypt was unable to forgive the President for deserting his duties as a servant for the Sultan during Timorlank invasion of Syria and would not rest until vengeance was excised on him, his family and close associates. Since the Mameluk of Egypt was in no position to gamble on a military campaign that could not be backed by the approval of the Syrian population then he looked toward a far distance foe for quashing his thirst for vengeance. More details were forthcoming that the Mameluk Sultan was secretly conniving with a Great Emir in Turkey from the Othman tribe in a deal to relinquish part of North Syria in return for the Turkish Emir to launch a military campaign deep in Mount Lebanon.
In fact, a new nation was being established in central Turkey led by the powerful tribe of Othman, a branch from the tribe that had generated the dynasty of the Seljuk in the 11th century. This Turkish nation was expanding slowly but steadily throughout Western Turkey and would eventually conquer Constantinople in the end of the 15th century. This infamous deal with the Mameluk of Egypt was to open the gate, a century later, to directing the Ottoman expansion South toward Syria and would ultimately enter Cairo in 1517 and end the Mameluks’ Empire in the Near East with two decisive military battles.
It was the advancing foreign armies in the North that provided the leverage for the President of the Levant to put a brake on that reckless state of affairs and regain the spirit of unity against the invaders as a priority for the Republic.
Rainbow over the Levant (fiction, continue)
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 19, 2008
A President for the Levant
The First Emir decided that it was time to adopt a written Constitution and elect a President for the Levant Nation to give a particular character of independence and self determination for the Levant. The first draft of the Constitution suggested by Gergis three years ago was dusted off and restudied with a sense of urgency. It was slightly modified because the First Emir refused any abridgement on his executive powers and a negotiated draft was accepted that allowed the current Chief to maintain his full executive authority for the first five years as an interim period and the drastic language for change was toned down. One article in the Constitution was added concerning the electoral system which insisted that the candidates should be able to read and write in the language of the land which was agreed to be the Arabic language. This article was intended to affirm the Arabic characteristic of the new Republic and to bring in new blood with potential to learn and understand the changing social and political structures. Thus, every candidate was submitted to the test of reading, listening to the petition of a citizen and transcribing the petition in correct and legible hand writing.
The modified and adopted Constitution had a prime objective to unify the new country with decentralized administrations that would cater to the immediate and routine needs of the population. This expanded Nation was officially named The Republic of the Levant and Antoun was unanimously elected as its first President for a ten-year term. His countrymen still called him Chief Emir or First Emir among the Emirs but the foreign dignitaries called him The Grand Emir for a while until the titled “Your Honorable President” became more common and accepted by the foreign delegates.
The President was reluctant to impose his opinions during the meeting of the government members and ruled that any vote on any article that exceeded the majority by 2 members would pass. He however retained the right for the President to veto any article that he deemed harmful to the unity of the nation until discussions with various parties were undertaken but he scarcely had need to veto any resolution.
Many old timers were removed from their responsibilities and younger officers were promoted. Discipline in the army and internal security forces was rigorously pursued and the spirit of the army of the people was rekindled.
The President of the Republic grabbed this opportunity to direct a few of these alleged charges against potential foes who grew popular and gathered strength regardless of their adherence to the political lines. Although the President still enjoyed leadership under the Constitutional mandate he secretly harbored a desire for his elder son to succeed him in due time with minimal opposition. Another serious reason to suspend the authority of some of his closer counselors was that the President felt a wind of extremism sweeping the Levantine citizens and feared for them to pay an extreme price. To that end, the President sent Gergis to Europe as his ambassador to drum up some financial and maritime support and expedited Mustafa to North Africa to manage the trading ports and possibly foment rebellions against the Mameluks and eventually raise an army to threaten Egypt from the West.
It was well known that those who achieve the most commit the most mistakes, so Gergis and Mustafa, being no dupes nor naïve in politics, realized that at this junction they were more of a liability to the President because they would be the prime targets for mismanagement and financial mishandling innuendoes. The rationale for relieving them from duty in the central government was essentially valid under the pressure of the better learned and excited new generation of service officers. The President had now to rely on the second generation of counselors with the exception of Mariam who was effectively leading the reform movement and was no help in restraining the spirit of the Nation toward dialogue and unity on the basis of diversity in freedom of beliefs and liberty of choices.
Why Israel went to war in 2006?
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 19, 2008
Why Israel went to war in 2006? (October 18, 2008)
I have been reading “Israel in state of chock” by Frederic Pons and many other manuscripts on the subject. Even the Winograd report and the other two reports didn’t dare state directly or clearly why Israel went to war in July 12, 2006; maybe the full reports did but were not released to the general public.
The way I see the big picture of the main reason Israel went to war against Hezbollah in July 2006 is that this war was not based on any strategic gain neither politically nor militarily at the time; there are indications that the Bush Administration and Chief of Staff Haloutz were readying a full scale war around September. The crux of the matter was that many ministers in the Olmert Administrations were seriously implicated judiciary for financial and moral wrong doings and they hoped that a striking military victory, in this golden opportunity offered to them, would restore their political credibility or at least restrain the legal procedures raised in their cases.
For example, Ehud Olmert was already facing investigation for financial conflict of interest, the Justice Minister Haim Ramon was indicted of sexual harassment, the President Moshe Katsav was investigated for cases of rape, the minister of finance Avraham Hirschon accepted dubious transfer of funds destined to the syndicate Histadrout and the Chief of Staff Halouz wanted to make profit by selling his judiciously invested stock shares before the announcement of war. To exacerbate matters, the Defense minister Amir Peretz was totally ignorant in military affairs and didn’t do his military service too and Haloutz and his inner circle of officers had already a detailed plan for air strikes in coordination with the US air command; Haloutz wanted “his war” and to prove the superiority of his strategy relying solely on air power; and mostly to make lots of profit with his closest allies in the military industrial complex for the replenishment of the military arsenal. Thus, the restricted war group of seven ministers didn’t include ministers of expertise in military matters such as Shaul Mofaz or Benjamin Ben Eliezer or the minister of the interior that could contribute in their opinions and would ultimately be most directly implicated in war and its aftermath such as the minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni.
The military in Israel was not “prepared” or ready for war simply because society and the younger generations had other more urgent difficulties to worry about. More than 25% of the eligible individuals to be drafted for their 3 years term avoided the call for military service, especially the most educated and living in large cities and the ultra-orthodox Israelites. The reservists had made it a habit to skip their 40-day service per year because of lax regulations on account that the army wanted to save on its budget. The so-called Home Front was totally neglected and no resources were allocated to social services or to improve conditions for any long term war situation. More than 2 million Israelites fled the areas targeted by katyousha rockets and the elderly and poor fresh immigrants from Ethiopia and Belarusian were left out without any government support for 33 days.
Israel used to hammer the concept that the “Arabs” do not read Israel’s newspapers; otherwise its “democratic” free press would have divulged the intentions of Israel against the Arab States. Nowadays, it seems that the former generations in Israel failed to read the manuscripts of their Founding Fathers; if they did they would have discovered that Hertzel, Wiseman, Sassoon and others had made deals with the colonial powers of Britain and France to settle the Jews in Palestine and in return to play cops and keep the Near East States, after their independence, divided and preventing this important geo-political region from uniting.
Britain wanted to save on any tax impositions on her commerce with India and to keep the flow of goods cheap at any circumstances. The colonial powers had this strategy from the 17th century. The USA was glad of this arrangement to keep the flow of oil at a ridiculously low price. Israel participated in the Suez invasion of 1956 along side Britain and France to satisfy its part of the deal and because France has offered Israel its first nuclear reactor. Israel has over 300 nuclear head bombs; why so many and for what purpose if it is not to be launched far away from its tiny borders?
If the former generations in Israel were voracious readers they would have packed and left this dangerous area long time ago. The mothers and fathers of the fallen Israeli soldiers and civilians would not have to mourn their deaths in over five offensive wars for a chimerical objective. I think that the times have changed and only those mercenaries happy to resume their favorite hobby of soldiers and sergeants would remain in Israel within this decade. It is hoped that the new Israeli generation is reading at the sources and would not wait any longer for this masquerade of their military industrial complex to abuse of their naïve fundamental religious beliefs.
Adonis Diaries 